1492 eBook

He was cousin, I had been told, to that Dona Beatrix
whom the Admiral cherished, mother of his youngest
son, Fernando. The Admiral had affection for
him, and Diego de Arana lived and died, a good, loyal
man. “A full outward life,” he went
on, “and I dare swear, a full inward one!”

“That is God’s truth!” said the
Admiral. “You may well say that, senor!
Inside I have lived with all who have lived, and discovered
with all who have discovered!”

I remember as a dream this last day upon the Santa
Maria. Beltran the cook had scalded his arm.
I dressed it each day, and dressing it now, half a
dozen idling by, watching the operation, I heard again
a kind of talk that I had heard before. Partly
because I had shipped as Juan Lepe an Andalusian sailor
and had had my forecastle days, and partly because
men rarely fear to speak to a physician, and partly
because in the great whole there existed liking between
them and me, they talked and discussed freely enough
what any other from the other end of ship could have
come at only by formal questioning. Now many of
the seamen wanted to know when we were returning to
Palos, and another number said that they would just
as soon never return, or at least not for a good while!
But they did not wish to spend that good while upon
the ship. It was a good land, and the heathen
also good. The heathen might all be going to
burn in hell, unless Fray Ignatio could get them baptized
in time, and so numerous were they that seemed hardly
possible! Almost all might have to go to hell.
But in the meantime, here on earth, they had their
uses, and one could even grow fond of them—­certainly
fond of the women. The heathen were eager to
work for us, catch us coneys, bring us gold, put hammocks
for us between trees and say “Sleep, senor,
sleep!” Here even Tomaso Passamonte was “senor”
and “Don.” And as for the women—­only
the skin is dark—­they were warm-hearted!
Gold and women and never any cold nor hunger nor toil!
The heathen to toil for you—­and they could
be taught to make wine, with all these grapes dangling
everywhere? Heathen could do the gathering and
pressing, and also the gold hunting in rocks and streams.
Spain would furnish the mind and the habit of command.
It were well to stay and cultivate Hispaniola!
The Admiral and those who wanted to might take home
the ships. Of course the Admiral would come again,
and with him ships and many men. No one wanted,
of course, never to see again Castile and Palos and
his family! But to stay in Hispaniola a while
and rest and grow rich,—­that was what they
wanted. And no one could justly call them idle!
If they found out all about the land and where were
the gold and the spices, was there not use in that,
just as much use as wandering forever on the Santa
Maria?

Mother earth was kind, kind, here, and she didn’t
have a rod like mother country and Mother Church!
They did not say this last, but it was what they meant.